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1.2.1-Pilferingapples
Brick!club Day 14 Fantine: Book 2: The Fall Ch.1: The Night After A Day’s Walk A WILD PLOT APPEARS! Is everyone else as excited about this as me? Rhetorical question, I read all the tagged posts, I know you are. And what a chunk of plot! Paranoid villagers! Socially maladjusted convicts! A dog fight! Hugo, I forgive you for “What He Thought”. I really do, because when things are ~happening~ instead of ideas being debated, I love Hugo’s excessive descriptions and flowery prose. His portrait of Valjean is so solid, not the modern take of a quick character sketch but something that I could use to recognize a man in public. And everything’s so tactile, with the dust of the road and steam of the inns and everything; it’s a very physical experience to read these passages. I’m sure that’s a big part of why this book rooted in my memory so hard when so much got scooped out. I especially love the eerie moment on the hillside; I’ve seen nights like that, and it is indeed deeply unsettling. Aside from just wanting to roll around in the prose like it’s a wave pool on a summer day, I am fascinated by the behavior of the people in this chapter. Never mind that none of them seem willing to extend hospitality to a stranger, or be anything less than paranoid, despite having the Bishop around for nine years by this point (Bishop, buddy, your flock needs maybe a little more instruction?). What gets me is that everyone is convinced Valjean is a dangerous man, that’s why they keep driving him away, and yet everyone is convinced Valjean is a dangerous man AND THEY KEEP DRIVING HIM AWAY. If I’m having a civil conversation and/or business transaction with a guy and I realize he’s the Centerville Strangler, “not suddenly antagonizing him” will become the first of my priorities. It seems odd that they’re not willing to take his peaceful custom, but ARE willing to make him angry— and yet it’s completely plausible. Just…not clear thinking. And perhaps a sign that they don’t really, on some level, think he’s dangerous in a criminal sense as dangerous in a sort of viral sense— that by letting him stay, they’re inviting/attracting trouble? Also, early appearance of la rose couverte! Where exactly did Valjean pick up singlestick? Did Hugo actually know fencing? Because he keeps mentioning this one move, was it super effective or just the only move he knew? Commentary Gascon-en-exile And so begins the Brick-long chronicling of one man’s suffering toward spiritual redemption. Although we get some extensive physical description here, Valjean never identifies himself - though he is forced to respond to his name - and the nature of his criminality has yet to be directly addressed. His relative anonymity at this point just helps to build up suspense for his inevitable characterization-by-exposition, but it also allows him to be comparable to other maligned wanderer figures like the mythological Wandering Jew and the monster of Frankenstein. Before we can have Hugo’s polemic against the unjust prison system, we have to learn to sympathize with his unjustly treated former prisoner. I suppose the bishop was so busy with helping the downtrodden that he neglected to pass on the message of being welcoming and loving, but considering it’s far easier to help someone physically in need than it is to improve a person morally I have a hard time judging him harshly for it. I do think it’s funny, though, that after being turned away by so many villagers (and a dog), it’s a marquise that possesses the magnanimity to not turn him away but instead point him in the direction of the bishop. Good to know Hugo doesn’t think all aristocrats are evil incarnate. Pilferingapples (reply to Gascon-en-exile) I don’t think Hugo ever says ANY group of people is evil incarnate. Some people are corrupted and some people are jerks, but rich, poor, peasant or artistocrat, everyone has someone in the Brick making their group look good or bad. I really like the Frankenstein’s monster comparison. I’ve always seen that as a story of bad parenting/social failure rather than a Science Gone Too Far tale, and I do see the same thing at work here— along with the superstrength of the “monster”, of course. Columbina YES YES YES THIS. This chapter made me remember the first time I attacked the Brick, when I was a wee little early high school girl and very proud and slightly scared to start, because what if it defeated me? I would be so ashamed. And then I ended up devouring it in a week, dragging it with me from class to class and rushing through my work so I could get to quiet reading time exactly because of passages like this, that were so immediate and, yes, tactile, that’s it exactly, along with, of course, being hilarious and exciting and heartbreaking all in one. Sometimes all in one sentence. Treblemirinlens Aaaaand my heart is already breaking for Jean Valjean. I understand where the townspeople are coming from… but at least some food/drink to go? Especially since he said he’d pay, but I guess they’re afraid any business at all would hurt their reputation. One thing I noticed and found interesting on this read-through is that nowhere in the chapter does it outright say he had been a prisoner (unless I completely missed something, which is entirely possible). Is it the same in the French and/or other translations (I’m using Wilbour)? I mean, if we weren’t all spoiled with already knowing the story we wouldn’t really know in this chapter just exactly why they’re being so harsh towards him.